Three Bedrooms, One Corpse - By Charlaine Harris Page 0,1
banker going through the apparently endless paperwork-and-signature minuet that concludes a house sale.
“Just till I get there,” my mother said. “You’re not a licensed realtor, so you can’t be showing them the house. You’re just there to open the door and be pleasant until I get there. Please explain the situation to them, just enough to let them know it’s not my fault I’m late. Here’s the key. Greenhouse Realty showed the house yesterday, but one of them must have given it to Patty early this morning; it was on the key board when I checked.”
“Okay,” I said agreeably. Not showing a rich couple a beautiful house was bound to be much more entertaining than sitting in a bank lobby.
I stuffed my paperback into my purse, put the Anderton key on my key ring, and kept a safe grip on the fact sheet.
“Thanks,” Mother said suddenly.
“Sure.”
“You really are pretty,” she said unexpectedly. “And all the new clothes you bought are so much better than your old wardrobe.”
“Well. .. thanks.”
“Since Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was in that movie, your hair seems to strike people as fashionable rather than unmanageable. And,” she went on in an unprecedented burst of candor, “I’ve always envied you your boobs.”
I grinned at her. “We don’t look like mother and daughter, do we?”
“You look like my mother, not me. She was an amazing woman.”
My mother had stunned me twice in one morning. Talking about the past was something she just didn’t do. She lived in the here and now.
“Are you feeling okay?” I asked nervously.
“Yes, fine. I just noticed a little more gray this morning.”
“We’ll talk later. I’d better get going.”
“Goodness, yes! Get over there!” Mother had looked at her watch again.
* * *
Luckily I’d met Mother at the bank instead of going with her from the office, so I had my own car. I got to the Anderton mansion in plenty of time to park to one side so my practical little car wouldn’t mar the view from the curb. Two months ago, when old Mr. Anderton had died, Mandy Anderton Morley (his sole heir) had flown in from Los Angeles for the funeral, put the house on the market the next day, and flown back out to her rich husband after clearing her father’s clothes out of the master bedroom and emptying all the drawers into boxes that she had shipped to her home. All the furniture was still in place, and Mandy had indicated to my mother she would negotiate with the buyers if they wanted some or all of the furnishings. Mandy had never been a sentimental person.
So when I unlocked the double front doors and reached in to turn on the lights in the cold, stale two-story foyer, the house looked eerily as it had when I was a child. I left the front doors open to let in some fresh air and stood just inside, looking up at the chandelier that had so awed me when I was eleven. I was sure the carpet had been replaced since then, but it seemed the same creamy color that had made me terribly conscious of any dust on my shoes. A huge brilliant silk-flower arrangement glowed on the marble table opposite the front doors. After you circled the marble table, you arrived at a wide staircase that led up to a broad landing, with double doors across from the top of the staircase echoing the double front doors below. I ran to turn the heat up so the house wouldn’t be so chilly while I was not-showing it, and returned to shut the front doors. I flipped on the switch that lit the chandelier.
I had enough money to buy this house.
The realization gave me a tingle of delight. My spine straightened.
Of course I’d be broke soon after the purchase—taxes, electricity, etc.—but I actually had the asking price.
My friend—well, really, my friendly acquaintance—Jane Engle, an elderly woman with no children, had left me all her money and belongings. Tired of my job at the Lawrenceton Library, I’d quit; tired of living in a row of townhouses I managed for my mother, I’d decided to buy my own house. Jane’s house, which I now owned, just wasn’t what I wanted. For one thing, there wasn’t room for our combined libraries of true and fictional crime. For another, my old flame Detective Arthur Smith, with his new wife, Lynn, and their baby, Lorna, lived right across the street.